


Close Enough to Lose Your Heart

by Northisnotup



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos' Team of Scientists - Freeform, Crushes, Dubious Science, M/M, OFC - Freeform, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-01-25 10:23:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1645268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northisnotup/pseuds/Northisnotup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every morning Carlos wakes up, looks out the window of his apartment to see the morning’s weather- A lady crooning, nasal but still beautifully about lady birds –the more he falls under Night Vale's spell. And betrays all he has ever learned about scientific integrity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Closer,' by The Tiny  
> Currently unbetaed

Forty-two…..

The monotone woman’s voice rings out of the radio.

Six…

She continues, just an emotionlessly as she has reiterated all numbers this past hour. Carlos, the diligent scientist he is, bites back a sigh and takes down the number. Even his pencil seems wary of this work but he will not be deterred. This is, after all, a self-imposed punishment for beginning to get complacent with Night Vale’s… oddities. Every morning he wakes up, looks out the window of his apartment to see the morning’s weather- A lady crooning, nasal but still beautifully about lady birds –the more he falls under the spell. And betrays all he has ever learned about scientific integrity.

And so, for three hours every evening Carlos tunes into the only other radio station in Night Vale and listens to a woman unfeelingly dictate numbers. It has to be some pattern. Some warning encrypted telling them all to flee. It has to be.

After eight months of this torture he does not know what will happen if it is not.

Perhaps the one good thing that came out of eight months living in Night Vale, was that when the door to his lab slams open hitting the wall’s damp and peeling drywall, he does not jump. He does not gasp, Carlos does nothing but patiently listen and painstakingly write down numbers.

Zero…

Irene is not normally an overly impulsive or passionate woman. Most things she does are calculated to achieve whatever she desires most and through years of friendship Carlos became an old hand at knowing exactly when to push her and when to sit back and let her have her way. It had surprised him almost as much as it infuriated her to learn they had both been made leaders on this joint expedition.

So to say he is caught off guard when she stalks into his lab and kills his radio was an understatement to the nth degree.

“Why?” He pitches his voice to an angry timbre, but what comes out is pitiful and resigned. Months of work; hours upon hours of listening, and recording and decoding and now it’s all for naught. Irene doesn’t dignify that with a response other than a haughty sniff and an imperious glance. Carlos is reluctantly impressed. It isn’t often that Irene can pull off imperious; usually it just comes off snotty.

She drops her sword –sword? Where did she get a sword? Why? Just… no. that is a whole other conversation he isn’t having – and props herself up on his desk where the vile radio used to be. Ignoring the sword for the sake of his sanity, Carlos turns to her knowing she’ll be unable to not share her genius. This is the same woman who still does long division by hand and shows all her work in equation’s even though she isn’t in school anymore and therefore is not getting penalized for it.

He doesn’t need to wait long. She shrugs expansively, waving his silent concerns away. “Don’t look like that, Carlos. I was just saving us both from your inevitable broken heart.”

Which… what?

“What?” He isn’t as far as he knew, seeing anyone. Though he does still feel his ego swell a bit when Cecil invites him anywhere. In fact, he’d been single for a year or two now, ever since Paolo… Well, let’s not think about Paolo. Paolo, the beautiful Puerto-Rican poet who’d had a string of lovers of whom Carlos was not even his favorite. “Is this about Cecil?”

Who is… Nice! He is, really. Nice and pretty in an ethereal sense and who says things like ‘Whisper a secret to someone you love. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won’t.” Honestly, a different Carlos, one without his history of lost loves and broken hearts may have taken up on Cecil’s many offers. But he is not a different Carlos. He is no one but himself. Greying, wrinkling, boring Carlos. The type of guy you’d say ‘has a great sense of humor!’ un-ironically.

As Irene collects herself, most likely weighing and measuring exactly what she is going to say, Carlos takes a moment to study her. They were such different people now than they had been, all those years ago in college when they met. She’d grabbed him at a frat party, too drunk and too trusting, fighting to fit in where he never would. She grappled him back to dorms and into bed, berating him quietly all the while. Carlos had been too distracted by her earrings, dangling and bright, to protest much. In the morning he’d nearly forgotten about her, the competent woman with the shiny jewelry and the soft English accent. It wasn’t until she slapped down her lunch tray next to his and asked his major that realization made him stutter out thank you’s, and I am so, so sorry’s. She sat a row ahead of him in Introduction to Poetry and three columns over in their shared Science and Ethics class. As the only two ‘people of color’ in the class, they were called on a lot. And, you know what? Too much, he would go so far as to say too much. It’s not like they had secret conferences with other non-white people and thus made up the opinions that All People Who Aren’t White share. No. How could they? Where would they find the time? But anyway..

Small, practical hoop earrings have replaced the sparkly attention gabbers, and there are more lines around her eyes than there are around her mouth. But nothing could really stop the surge of fondness he felt for her and the effortless way Irene slips into his life and takes up all remaining space. In another world, that could have been why Irene never approved of any of Carlos’ boyfriends. But in this world, Irene has never given her approval because he has unequivocally the worst taste in men. But he does have the best taste in literature, which is why in a sort of desperate poetic irony, all of his exes since college have been writers of some sort. And all of them have broken his heart in a fantastical fashion.

She gives him a warmer look as he stretches his arms up and gently flicks her right ear, eyes crinkling when the musical jingle of her four earrings clinking together reaches them both. “No, I’m talking about the other smooth voiced radio jockey who raptures about your hair and won’t talk to anyone else on the team but you.” It’s his favorite of her looks because it says ‘you’re an idiot but I am quite fond of you.’

Of course all he can think to reply, much to her consternation is: “He likes my hair?”

He hadn’t meant to say that. But, really? On the radio? Carlos doesn’t get much chance to listen to Cecil’s show. His time slot intersects with Carlos’ chosen slot of the number reading segment of Night Vale Community Radio’s only rival in town: WZZZ. Occasionally he gets to tune in just in time to hear Cecil sign off, fondly wishing his town and the many residents in it a good night.

A huff escapes her lipstick drenched mouth. Irene has this way of looking at people as if they are a particularly pitiful slide on her microscope. “Oh, Carlos,” She sighs, dark eyes fluttering shut and frown lines makes ridges form between bushy unkempt brows. “Can you, for once in your life, find someone who is not a poet?”

Furious blush darkening his cheeks, Carlos thought about that slight. Like most chubby teen’s he lost his virginity in college; and like most closeted gay men, he lost it clumsily flopping about on the first girl who showed any romantic interest in him. Sienna had bumped into him during freshmen orientation. They went on a couple of weeks’ worth of awkward and tepid dates before she invited him back to her empty dorm room. She had sighed happily when he slipped inside her. Her hands soft of his back as he shook, scared and thrilled through his first orgasm with another person present. Sienna had then patiently guided him through her own peak. Afterwards, she held his hand and told him she thought they should see other people, and Carlos, too ashamed at sleeping with someone he didn’t really like nodded without meeting her eyes.

She’s still on his facebook, happily married and her last book won an award of some kind. It’s being turned into a movie now actually.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to say something about the all brawns no brain type she falls for every time they make eyes at her figure. But, The heart wants, what the heart wants, he thinks guiltily, remembering the onetime he said it to her. Her idiot boyfriend –Chet, had broken up with her because she wasn’t a “Real Woman,” whatever that was. (He imagines that in Night Vale, real womanhood is a scout badge, or probably means you can disappear or that the Sheriff’s Secret police cannot charge you with crimes or something silly. You probably have to petition the city council for the title, and pray into a blood stone circle every third Tuesday. ) She had just sobbed harder, smearing tears, mascara and snot into his neck to mingle with his cologne. Irene was not comforted by possibilities or perhaps.

With some effort he shakes the memory off. “What is all this about Irene?”

She pulls out her phone and presses play on an audio file. Cecil’s voice crackles over the line.

“Well, I gave him my home phone number quite a while back and he never called. And I didn’t think anything of it, right? I mean... Sometimes people just don’t call, and that’s okay! Well- to the point, Carlos calls! And I’m like Hello~? Like I don’t even have caller ID, and he’s like I need to talk to you. This is important.”

She cuts it off there, after Cecil’s impression of Carlos’ serious manner. It’s bittersweet to hear him like this, the awkward, excitable tone is familiar. It’s how Cecil talks whenever they’re alone together, equal parts shy toddler with a crush and vivacious cheerleader. On the radio that shy sweet part of him disappears leaving the bubbly radio host seem well, silly. He very nearly frowns but manages to hold back, knowing Irene is watching his every expression and extrapolating from that. He just hopes that no one judges Cecil for how he seems on that recording. Cecil is a bright, amazing man and while Carlos enjoys his company, very much in fact, he doesn’t want to be that guy. Cecil has made his interest apparent, and it’s not fair to give him hope where there is none.

Taking a deep breath, he gives Irene a small smile. “I called because I need to outsource information on the temporal anomaly in Night Vale. The higher ups are invested in how time passes here, you know that.”

She frowns heavily, lips pursing in a way that makes her face look flat. “And you meet with him for coffee at Big Rico’s because? You walk with him sometimes, because? You chat while in line at the Ralph’s because?”

There are a million reasons he does those things. Overall, Cecil is good company. He’s kind, cheerful, knows everything that could possibly be known about Night Vale, except of course, for the things he forgets from school or possibly never knew –Re-education, right? Mostly though, it’s because he already spends 8-12 hours a day with his team. Steve Carlsberg gets into uncomfortably heated arguments over the phone with his wife; and, there’s only so much talk about invisible corn he can take, thank you very much John Peters. You know, the farmer. (Not the John Peeters who works in the bank, or the Jon-athan Peters who’s a teacher at the elementary school – Weird Spanish) Old Woman Josie, who isn’t really that old, doesn’t talk to him, just smiles and tells him that Erica sends their blessings. (No, dear, Eri-ka, with a K). And the rest of the town, presumably thanks to Cecil’s show is in a sort of odd awe of him.

Telly had been nice. Until he went insane and took off to the sand-wastes.

So, really, socializing with Cecil is about the only option he has. Not that, Cecil’s a ‘last resort’ or anything! He’s nice! It’s just, you know, you’re new in town. Here for work, no idea how long you’ll be staying or if you’ll even survive to next month… it’s not an ideal time to start a relationship. Any sort of relationship! Not even strictly a romantic relationship. Scientifically speaking, Night Vale’s statistics of promiscuity vs. monogamy aside, if he were to pursue a romantic relationship with Cecil, well, there’s a greater chance of getting throat spiders than there is of forming a lasting an emotionally healthy/happy relationship with Cecil. The numbers don’t lie. Seriously. Throat spiders. Who knew.

But Carlos resigned himself to that before he agreed to have coffee the first time with Cecil. So, he just keeps that small, sad smile on his face. “I like him,” He explains simply, smiling even as Irene recoils in disgust. “It’s fine. With the future…and everything else, so uncertain,” He shrugs lifting his massive shoulders and letting them fall expansively. “I mean, everything here is so fatal. In the few months we’ve been here there’s been what, a hundred civilian casualties? You know, I’ve actually been thinking of making some sort of fatality measurement, like unit or something to measure how fatal it is on any particular day. I think it’ll be a real hit!”

It is. Night Vale has a flat line Fatality Rating of 10, a huge spike from the Fatality Rating of the closest ‘normal’ city of Phoenix, 4; though much lower than the flat line rating of Desert Bluffs: 27. (Taking into account the number of murders, murder attempts, accidental deaths, ICU patients admitted, suicides and attempted suicides in a single day, charted over a month and used as a baseline for further measurements and predictions. In Night Vale, Carlos also has to take into account the sightings of the Man in the Tan Jacket, People who have recently been near the Dog Park, how far the army of the advancing civilization underneath the pin retrieval area behind lane 5 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex has gotten, who or what has disappeared recently, where has it reappeared, and of course whatever new and ever-present danger Cecil has reported on lately.) Their lab sells Danger Meter’s on the side now, a welcome additional income. (Their parent corporation isn’t always on top of sending living allowances)

Even Mayor Pamela Winchell stopped by the labs to buy one during their grand reveal. And of course to denounce any rumors of her stepping down and being replaced by, of all things, a five headed dragon. “Tax fraud!” She blurted out, her too-wide smile looking a little panicked. “Tax fraud. You can’t be a mayor with tax fraud! Everyone knows that.”

Rochelle says Cecil stopped by, but didn’t linger very long. Carlos tries not to be disappointed by that. But his shoulders slump and from that moment on his sale numbers take a hit. He is disappointed, the numbers don’t lie. His is, scientifically disappointed. He shouldn’t be though, right? Cecil moving on is what he wants. He doesn’t have time for a romantic relationship. But, Cecil lingers, if there’s a chance they can talk. It’s a thing, a scientific certainty. He’d only been talking to Irene for a few minutes (however long a minute now is, or however it can be quantified. Time.) She’d been leaning over his shoulder, latest results on the woods around town. The computer took all their readings and just spit out the words: Soylent Green, over and over all along the page. Both Sides. Carlos really doesn’t want to interpret those results. Please, don’t make him try to comprehend that. Maybe Cecil didn’t see him, or maybe he didn’t want to bother Carlos, or maybe he had something…or someone more important to see.

Like a good sales person and a polite citizen, Carlos waits until their sale is over to pull out his phone and call. He didn’t make the conscious decision to call. He didn’t pull out his phone, stare a Cecil’s contact, dither for a while. No. He just pulled out his phone and called. (When Cecil made his way to Carlos’ speed dial, he’s not sure. But there he is, right next to his sister Maria and grandmother.)

“Hello, Cecil. This is Carlos…The Scientist. I’m not calling for personal reasons.” Except he is, he absolutely is. “Rochelle told me you were at our Danger Meter sale today. I was…hoping to talk to you about the abnormal readings I picked up at the Dog Park.” Carlos is a lying liar who lies, he’s hasn’t taken a meter to the Dog Park in a month. But if he did he bets his best semi-casual lab coat the readings would be abnormal. “Scientifically speaking, it’s much safer to go near the gate to the Dog Park in pairs. Please let me know if you can accompany me. Um, Thanks.”

“That was pathetic,” Irene notes from her comfortable position against the wall of Big Rico’s counting their sale money. One guy tried to trade invisible corn; what an asshole. Everyone knows the invisible corn harvest was two months ago.

“I know, Irene.”

“I was thinking of making a patheticness meter,” She continues dispassionately, now dividing the sales up into percentage piles. “I mean, everything you do regarding that man is so pathetic, there should be a unit or something to measure it.”

“Shut up, Irene.”

_(Night Vale, I just have to ask… At what point are a pair of people too close, you know? Like at what point does a friendship become something to worry about, something to think about constantly. A constant, never ending, unceasing concern?_

_(A sigh.) There’s this woman. She’s a scientist. The scientists are, great! I am sure, she is great. I am sure, they are just. Friends. I am sure there is nothing to worry about._

_Well, the reason I’m going so far as to bring all this up today listeners, is because today, as I’m sure you all know, is Danger Meter day! Carlos and his team of scientists are selling Danger Meters! And if you head down to the rented lab right next to Big Rico’s Pizza, you can buy a Danger Meter from Carlos himself! See his dazzling smile and perfect, perfect hair._

_I headed down that way myself listeners, but Carlos was unfortunately busy. With her. His friend. Which is fine. They’re friends! So, I bought my Danger Meter, assisted by a scientist named Ruth who had decidedly heated words with this humble radio host about Mountains, but was otherwise, lovely. And, on my way back to the studio, to do this broadcast, he called me! Just, okay, listen. I think this speaks for itself! “Hello, Cecil. This is Carlos…”)_


	2. Chapter 2

“Sorry! Sorry!” Carlos leaves the door to the still rocking rental open, rushing to catch Cecil just as the man is about to climb into his own car. “I’m so, so sorry. I had a few experiments I had to finish up, and then the centrifuge wasn’t working and Irene wanted to come along to get biological samples from the wall.” He gasps a bit, taking in Cecil’s wondrous expression and sheepishly finishes. “Um, sorry.”

“I didn’t think you were coming.” Cecil mumbles, his shy smile transforming his otherwise bland features. He’s the type of man who just blends in effortlessly anywhere he goes. His face is so…normal that it’s easy to just gloss over him, accept him into the background of your life. But there’s something about the eyes, at second glance, something about the tilt of his lips maybe; that makes him unforgettable. Well, that and the weird third eye he doesn’t seem to realize he has. The one that opens at his hairline, a little to the left of his center-part of hair, the bones turning concave to form the eye socket just before it opens and Cecil gets information on events in Night Vale as they happen.

The slamming door of his rental shakes him out of his reverie. “Of course I was coming. I invited you here, and I said I was coming.” He flinches a little when Irene stomps towards him, the bag over her shoulder bulging with their combined equipment.

“Thank you, for that!” She snaps, shoving the bag at him in such a way he has to take it if he doesn’t want some of their more delicate equipment to break. In short, economical movements, she sweeps her long thick hair up into a quick bun, before holding her hold out to Cecil. “Hello, it’s lovely to meet a local celebrity.”

“Oh!” He enthuses, taking her hand happily. “You must be one of Carlos’ Scientists!”

And wow that is the wrong thing to say. Irene throws her shoulders back, her smile going ice cold. “I’m my own scientist, actually.”  She says in a voice metaphorically dripping venom. (That happened once, to Dave, who’d said something so scathing to James that venom had literally started dripping from his mouth. It took over an hour to stop. But on the bright side, venom is lighter than saliva, so they were easily able to separate it and make doses of anti-venom. That was a nice day.)

He’s able to relax slightly when she softens under Cecil’s stuttering, stumbling apologies. “I’m so sorry! Obviously-! I-I mean, of course you’re-…  I never meant to imply that you….”

The walk is nice, pleasant. Cecil enthuses about the upcoming sports season and listens intently when Carlos explains what a Geiger counter does. It’s nearly, well, perfect. Except.

It’s not that he doesn’t love Irene. She is his closest and dearest friend. To have her here is a comfort beyond measure and to be able to talk uncensored about his life to his best friend is a treasure. He knows his letters, e-mails and phone conversations are monitored. Hell, it’s only one call in seven that actually gets through to his family. (Not that it’s much different from when he worked in a lab at headquarters. But at least there he knew what he had to censor and what he could say.) He’s just used to spending time with Cecil alone, is all. 

And that’s just the start. She shows up at Big Rico’s, leaning on Carlos’ arm and correcting his data points. And at the Moonlight All Night diner, picking at Carlos’ invisible pie. Cecil makes polite conversation, and for what it’s worth Irene is completely polite back, more warm by half then he ever expected her to be. But every appearance she makes shortens Cecil’s smile. He begins to make excuses, leaves early, and begs off. It’s troubling. An anomaly; an unexpected data point Carlos can’t begin to make sense of. 

“This too shall pass.” Irene says breezy and calm, sipping at her mint-apple-cinnamon milkshake. She settles smugly back into the vinyl seats at the Moonlight All Night Diner, tapping at Carlos’ feet with her own whenever he cranes his neck to see if Cecil is on his way. It’s not like Carlos called him an arranged this particular meeting, so he has no way of know that Cecil will actually come. But, there’s something to be said, scientifically speaking for precedence. This is practically a standing…um, not date. But, every Thursday, providing that Thursday hasn’t been cancelled that week, they meet for about an hour at the Moonlight All Night Diner.

Carlos has so much to talk about when he’s with Cecil. Until they started talking, he never really realized how much The Sheriff’s Secret Police has positively influenced his opinions of law enforcement. They’re certainly an oppressive regime, but they’re an equally oppressive regime. Back where he’s from, Carlos knows a guy who got pulled over for jaywalking. Ahmed had been just about to cross the street to say hello when an office pulled up beside him and asked for his license and registration. No joke. (It probably didn’t help that American born Ahmed had laughed: “But officer! I just got these shoes and haven’t had a chance to insure them!”)

Her foot kicks at his, ungently. His neck snaps back from the uncomfortable angle he bent it at, trying to look past Juanita Jefferson outside handing out pamphlets. “Why are you here, Irene?”

“Shouldn’t I meet your friends?” And soaring past imperious and right into snotty teenager, is his Irene.  

“You’ve never shown any interest in Cecil until that broadcast.”

“Relax Carlos, I just want to know the local celebrity a little better, is all.” She lies right to his unimpressed face. He sips at his iced mint tea balefully, waiting her out. Eventually, her lips press together and she shifts sulkily, caught at her game. “It’s just an experiment. A little sociological experiment. After what happened with Telly, and the way this,” She waves her hand impatiently, “Cecil thing is going, we need data. We can’t afford to be flying blind here.”

“What about Telly?”

“Telly? Who cut your hair once and now haunts the sand wastes? Oh, you know what, you need to hear this from him.” As she pulls out her phone, Carlos takes a bracing sip of his tea. 

“Do you record all of his shows?” He sounds annoyed but is mostly just concerned. Now that his findings on WZZZ are all messed up, he should probably start listening to Cecil’s show so that he doesn’t have to endure Irene’s intense studying of his face during her forced re-runs. And so he doesn’t have to count on their weekly meets to catch up on new laws and by-laws that have been passed. He’s already been issued a warning and two small fines for being behind on his by-laws.

“I like listening to his voice, it’s a nice background to daily tasks.” Irene smiles briskly, placing the small green phone between them.

//“… _Act as luridly admiring Carlos’ stunning coif? Reports from two intrepid sources are saying that it was Telly the Barber. Telly who likes sports and has posters of combs. Telly the Barber seems to be the one who betrayed our community…”_ //

“Whoa.”

“Yes. Whoa.” She mimics his American accent and then looks down, ashamed. As she should be. Mimicking is beneath her and they both know it.   

He sighs, refusing to give in to the old urge to rub at his temples. Irene got this way about her doctoral thesis too; like a dog with a bone, she’ll guard the thought from others while single-mindedly following her theory to its fiery end. “What’s your hypothesis?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t come to this conclusion on your own. I think Cecil is Night Vale.”

“You think he’s the personification of a small desert town.” Carlos tries to school his features into objective disinterest. He can’t. His eyebrows are raised high over his widened eyes. He’s looking at Irene like she’s crazy. It’s a look they’re both used to.

“No, I think he’s the personification and the Voice of a culture, of a place. You remember _Good Omens_?”

Carlos nods. The silly tongue-in-cheek novel about angel’s and demons had helped Carlos come to terms with his own angry and unsure feelings on God and formalized religion. After a week of reading it front to back and front again he spoke to a priest for the first time since his older brother died. (He hadn’t been buried in the family plot, with Carlos paternal relations. Suicides are an affront to God, after all.) He kept a dog eared, spine cracked copy with him always. And two years into their friendship, when Irene’s mother had died and she spent a silent week clutching a tarnished gold cross so hard it left marks, he slipped her a copy as well. He doesn’t know if the book became a safe haven for her like it was for him. They never spoke of the funeral service spent under the judgmental eyes of Christ, or how her hand, sweaty with sharp manicured nails, never left his.

She nods back seriously, leaning in and lowering her voice appropriately. “Adam loved where he grew up so much, it became a force of nature. I think the people here love Night Vale so much, they gave it a Voice. I’ve tried looking up records of the broadcasters that came before him, and I can’t find anything. Cecil himself has never been an intern at NVCR, and they keep very detailed records. I’ve listened to every broadcast he’s made since we’ve been here. He’s either lying, or he remembers very little to nothing about the thirty to forty years he’s been alive. Yes, you can chalk some of that up to Re-Education, but if the City Council was going to Re-Educate him, why wouldn’t they update his personality traits? He’s got a lot of free will and very little censorship for someone so close to the Council, who reports on all of Night Vale.”

A knock on the window beside them startles Irene badly. A balaclava clad…person (Gender is so difficult to determine with officers of the Sheriff’s Secret Police. Which is saying something considering how open everyone is about gender-variant people in Night Vale. Not asking someone their pronoun preference when first meeting them is a huge offence. Their waiter today, for instance, has a tag that says: Hi! My name is Skye, please use male pronouns. Apparently so as not to let a discussion of personal form of address ruin a customer-wait-staff relationship.) The balaclava clad person gestures to their own throat, and then points upward before returning to the branches of the tree on the corner of the street.

“So,” Carlos says loudly, watching a hand come out of the tree to give him a thumbs up. He clears his throat, leaning back in an overly casual way and takes a bracing sip of tea. He reaches for something to add onto that ‘so’ but there is nothing. Admittedly, he doesn’t actually know very much about Cecil. Or, Night Vale, really. The History, going back a hundred years is very well documented but twenty and thirty years back is spotty and much contested. “What is your actual hypothesis, Irene?”

Quick as anything, Irene switches sides of the booth, snuggling into his side in a way she only ever does during thunderstorms. Her smile is small and predatory when Cecil sits down opposite them, apologizing for being late and with a weary sigh, ordering a plate of Resigned Happiness a la mode. “If we’re going to live here safely, we need to start testing boundaries, Carlos. We need to know how far Night Vale will go, to protect it’s Voice.”

“So….. What are we talking about?” Cecil asked, voice deep and sonorous. Carlos represses a sigh, moving to pass his steadily warming drink back and forth between his hands. Cecil has become so reserved since Irene began joining them. At first he suspected the man was just uncomfortable with her, which is understandable. Irene has been sometimes described as: prickly, cold, mean, blunt, uncomprehending of human emotion, Machiavellian, etc.  But they get along quite well, having spirited discussions about the various flora and fauna of Night Vale, the recent changes to the school system and how it’s driving test scores down. Cecil’s just not as emotionally free as he once was. Which is fine. If he speaks to Carlos as if he’s reading the news on air, that is fine. It’s probably best, actually. And as long as he never starts talking to Carlos like he talks about Steve Carlsburg everything’s okay.

“What are your feelings on elective additive surgeries, Cecil? Carlos was just commenting on perhaps getting an extra eye, so as to further our research, and I happen to think a pair of gills would look marvelous on you. Functional, too. What with the lake the City Council is putting in, in partnership with Night Vale Tourism.”  She pinches the inside of his elbow when he tries to contradict that, before laying her hand faux-casually over his arm.

\---

She doesn’t bother to share her experiment parameters with him, but then Carlos didn’t really expect her to. It’s her experiment after all, and he’s not much of a biologist, he’s a scientist. So, he’ll leave her to whatever crazy she’s planning, aware as he is that he might actually be a secondary subject in that crazy. Whatever. It’s not his business.

His business is the seismology of Night Vale, and what exactly is going on at the Bowling Alley… okay fine, the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Happy? It’s just a lot. Everything is a lot. And it’s not just Cecil! Everyone does it. John Peters, you know that farmer, that makes sense. John Pe(e)ters is a common name, but it doesn’t stop there. The House that Doesn’t Exist, (it looks like it exists, like it’s just right there, and it’s between two identical houses so it makes more sense for it to be there than not.) Ms. Josie Anders is Old Women Josie, June is Cactus June the third most beautiful women in Night Vale, and of course, the bowling alley, can’t just be the bowling alley. No! It’s the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex.

It’s Night Vale. So when in Night Vale, and all that.

It’s a difficult line to walk, and one Carlos was expecting, but really didn’t anticipate being this hard. As a scientist he needs to blend in with the town, needs them to accept him enough that they won’t avoid him and screw with his data. But he also needs to maintain his distance. Getting too close will also screw up his data. So, he uses the local jargon, and takes measurements of earthquakes the town doesn’t feel, and reads meters that track time here and time elsewhere, wonders why the sun emits noise, but why that noise doesn’t translate into physical sound waves, and why the veil that separates one reality from the next is so thin. It’s all so very weird and interesting here.

But it’s not like he hasn’t poked at the laws of physics before, who hasn’t right? Working for his chosen, secret government-adjacent science corporation, for (Redacted) and (redacted)…

Carlos twitches, head turning sharply to the side as the muscles in one side of his neck spasm. He didn’t know they could monitor thought crimes this far from HQ. Interesting.

(They’re not really ‘thought crimes,’ not really. Just blanks of memory where important information was stored. Things like the actual name of the corporation, and his boss’ name. Just little, important things. He’ll get them back when he’s back in the bowels of HQ. But working out of range of the office, there’s too much left to chance. You can’t have operatives walking about with sensitive, proprietary information just lying about in their brains for anyone to take! Talk about a security risk.)

Anyway, what the sort of useless thought train circles is this: Carlos is not part of Irene’s experiment. However much he happens to be involved. And however much his involvement happens to translate into the most physical contact he’s had with Irene in years. She holds his hand now when they walk about town. Kisses his cheek when leaving for her own lab, next to Old Woman Josie’s house, out near the car lot. The heaps of PDA and mushy affection she’s suddenly raining on him make his skin, metaphorically, itch.

Like most friends, they have their rhythms, patterns of behavior people fall into after existing in each others space for so long. Physical contact is not a part of their rhythm. They touch one another, sure. A hand on the shoulder, a teasing poke, a comforting caress. But not this. This whole, thing. But the worst part is it’s beginning to affect their working relationship, which is unacceptable. He flinched when she handed him a beaker of saline solution. Twitched away from her fingers touching his, causing the solution to drop to the floor and the breaker to break. He liked that breaker, damnit.

It’s a miserable few weeks. Despite the danger meters, many people die. The Dog Park opens, the Whispering Forest becomes a valid lifestyle choice for some people, leading Juanita Jefferson to gloat proudly to anyone who will listen: “Trees! They are us!”

Carlos doesn’t like to speak ill of people, but she’s such a smug little gossip. The Secret Police apprehended James earlier this week, kept him in an ‘undisclosed location’ – the abandoned mine shaft outside of town –Because she told them he was using banned writing implements. They were scientists! How else were they supposed to record data without writing implements? Juanita Jefferson really needs to get a hobby.

 Of course, he could just be irritable because Cecil has taken to avoiding Carlos more stringently. And whenever he goes anywhere now, with or without Irene, he feels the eyes of the townspeople follow him. And not just in that awed sort of worshipful way they used to, which was weird enough. Now they stare angrily, barely held hostility and contempt in their features. Hooded Figures linger just outside his field of vision, gone when he turns his head to try to catch them.

“Irene,” He sighs, pinching his lips together and trying not to pull his arm away from where she has it wrapped around her waist. “I understand the very basics of why you’re doing what you’re doing but, what exactly is the desired outcome of this experiment?”

“Carlos, we’ve been here almost a year now, yes?” Irene smiles sweetly at him from under the wide brim of her sunhat.

“Yes?” He smiles hesitantly back, still unsure where she’s going with this.

“And about a hundred citizens have died, yes?”

“Yes. I assume you’ll get to the point of these leading questions eventually.” Carlos bites out, unrepentant even when she pinches his ticklish and sensitive sides.

“And, in all that time, isn’t it a little odd that nothing whatsoever has happened to us or our teams?” She pauses, staring into his eyes with feverish intensity. They’re outside her lab now, Old Women Josie and some of her…friends on the porch, pretending not to watch.

“And your theory is, what? That Cecil likes me enough that as the personification of Night Vale he’s keeping us all safe?”

She looks like she wants to smack him upside the head and tell him to smarten up. “Carlos, Cecil loves you.” Irene gives him the bare minimum of time to let that sink in. “It’s quite poetic, wouldn’t you say? The Voice of Night Vale falling in love with the scientists who seek to understand him.”  

Carlos takes a large, deep breath. With some effort, he sets that idea aside, along with the incomprehensible tangle of emotions it evokes. He can’t hope to sort it out immediately, and doesn’t bother to try. “Irene.”

She leans into him, cups his cheeks with her soft hands and kisses him then. Her lips are soft, slick with gloss and tacky with lipstick.

He’s shocked. After almost a year in Night Vale, it’s an emotion he’s no longer familiar with.

“I’m sorry. I need to know just how safe we are here.” She whispers against his slack mouth. “There’s a sealed envelope in my apartment, if I go missing tomorrow or in three days, you know where to send it.”

With that, she saunters proudly into the lab. Her white coat and matching white hat billowing in the afternoon heat, and blowing a kiss behind her.

When he turns, still stunned, to walk the path to his own lab, next to Big Rico’s Pizza. The Hooded Figure doesn’t bother to sit in the edge of his vision. They stare at him accusingly all along the walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Currently Unbetaed, Irene's theory is lovingly borrowed from a Welcome to Night Vale Head Canon, from the tumblr. Unfortunately the tumblr is currently on hiatus.


End file.
